WMG / Punch-Out!!

Little Mac is dead

• He got knocked out by Glass Joe because the guy is only 2 inches tall and Glass Joe's fist is bigger than his head. When he connected a punch back in the original arcade title, he broke his skull and Mac dreamed the rest of the series up.
  • Jossed, it's the VIDEO boxing tournament. Which means not only could Little Mac not be dead, he and anyone else who entered couldn't really feel any injuries.

The soda/vodka Soda Popinski/Vodka Drunkinski drinks contains steroids.

• Practically made obvious during the TD match in Punch-Out Wii.
  • Worse...he's drinking Vodka and Red Bull.
    • I believe this idea, having drunk quite some Heart Attack Specials in my time.
  • Well, Steroids wouldn't act that quickly. More likely it's laced with some Adrenalin or some similar super-stimulant.
  • Or just a hell of a lot of caffeine.
  • Worse still? Amphetamines.

Dragon Chan was with his family, having adventures with his niece and uncle during the Wii version of Punch-Out!!.

• That, or he had jumped to the moon.

The Developers of the Wii game are going to do a Donkey Kong game next

• Why do I say this? Well, because of the cameo as the final Mystery boxer, and the fact that poor old DK hasn't really had a proper adventure since DK64, so it's high time they give him a new one.
  • Nope, turns out Retro Studios is handling the next Donkey Kong game.
  • There was Jungle Climber on DS…
    • Next Level Games' next project was Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon on the 3DS.

Bear Hugger is related to Squirrel Girl somehow.

• They both have pet squirrels.

Doc Louis and Mr. Sandman are brothers

• They both have the same voice actor, and were both Heavyweight boxers. Maybe Doc was even his trainer at one point, until Mr. Sandman shrugged him off. It would add a new depth to the game, for sure.

Heike Kagero is Leeron with a kabuki wig and different makeup.

• Just look at◊ the◊ two and come up with a conclusion.

Glass Joe is paid to be a Jobber.

• One has to wonder why a guy of his (lack of) skill has stuck with boxing for so long. He doesn't even look◊ like he wants to be in the ring. Chances are he's paid to be there so he can take beatings for the amusement of others.
  • It's been implied that his only win was against Nick Bruiser. THE Nick-fucking-BRUISER! If that's true, I think he still fights because something in his psyche says that if he can beat him he can do anything he damn well pleases.
  • I believe Cracked said it best: "This guy is clearly here against his will. Look at him! It's as if he thinks there's some guy in the audience with a sniper rifle trained on him."
• What about the other boxers except Little Mac?
  Soda Popinski: {in russian} Hahaha! That puny little man couldn't hurt a fly. We were all acting. Even "Glass Joe" was talking shit behind Little Mac's back. Fact is, Nintendo paid us all a hell of a lot to take those falls. And I bought myself some fine Russian vodka with all of that money! Ah ha ha! Ah ha ha! Ah ha ha ha!
• From the NES game, Glass Joe's one win might be against Doc Luis's dad. Considering Luis is retired his dad must have been very old if they fought.

Doc Louis is Mr. Sandman from the future.

• We know that Doc Louis used to be a heavyweight champion. We also know that Mr. Sandman and Doc have the same voice actor. Thus it would only make sense that they are connected somehow. Here's the idea: Mr. Sandman was defeated by an underdog challenger (Little Mac) and lost his title. This caused him to realize how much of a jerk he was when he had the title because all of the power went to his head. Thus, he retired and became a personal trainer for up-and-coming boxers. One day, he looked in the mirror and realized that the man who trained Little Mac well enough to dethrone Mr. Sandman was himself. Armed with this newfound knowledge, he traveled back in time to train Mac.
  • Boosting this theory, Mr. Sandman and Doc are the only two characters in the game that refer to Mac as 'Mac Baby'.
  • Only one flaw. People knew Doc Louis was a champion before he met Little Mac, so Mr. Sandman would have to go back in time, become a heavyweight champion again, lose, and then meet up with mac years later.
  • Maybe Mr. Sandman got tired of being the best in his time, so he went back in time in order to challenge the boxers of the past. Then he lost, and so on and so forth.
  • Doc is a Time Lord, chocolate bars are his TARDIS.
  • There's another flaw here- Doc is just too short in comparison to Sandman.

The entire thing is a setup by the Make-A-Wish foundation.

A teenage boxing phenomenon that has muscular dystrophy asks the organization to make him a boxing champion. So, Make-A-Wish puts on an elaborate charity boxing event, where the undersized kid faces off against amateurs and street performers paid to come at Mac with slow, predictable attacks and easily-identifiable patterns, and ultimately take a dive in a dramatic fashion. Iron Mike comes in to give the proceedings some star power, and legitimately comes at Mac for a contractually-obligated half round before taking the fall for the greater good (and a hell of a lot of much-needed good publicity).

• It...makes too much sense.

The entire thing is an attempt by Mac to train the next generation of boxers.

The state of boxing has fallen into such a state of disrepute and untalented hacks that Mac takes it on himself to train a selection of his most promising students. Unfortunately, they lack so much skill that it's a lost cause. First Mac quickly has to resort to fighting way above his weight class in hopes of leveling the playing field. When that's still too difficult for his fellow boxers, he stands in one place and only uses five punches. When that's still too difficult for he overlooks their blatant cheating, letting boxers use magic and armor without saying a word. When THAT'S not enough of a handicap he arranges a last-ditch attempt to knock some badassery and self-esteem into his colleagues by allowing them to endlessly come after him. And after winning dozens of fights in a row Little Mac is so disgusted by how his opponents refuse to learn anything that he retires from boxing forever.

Each fighter is allowed to do/use one thing that would normally be against the rules.

Thus why the Bear Hug, Super Soda, Teleportation, and lucky horseshoes are allowed in the ring. Mac's cheat is the Star Punch. In addition, a fighter has the option to use a second cheat when challenging the Champion, which explains most of Title Defense mode.

• Then why didn't Little Mac choose a second cheat against Mr.Sandman when he was the champion? Or how did Von Kaiser, Disco Kid, King Hippo, Piston Hondo, Don Flamenco, Super Macho Man, and Mr. Sandman cheat before Title Defense...I think they where all fighting clean there...
  • Mac's second cheat could be the headgear; the only reason he doesn't use it unless he gets KO'd 100 times is pretty much the same reason for all of Mac's Last Stand, he wants to be as awesome as possible.
    • But the other boxer?How did they cheat in Contender Mode.
    • Maybe they just didn't feel like it? It didn't say they have to, just that they're allowed.

There is a mass conspiracy against Little Mac

In the Title Defense mode, the cheating pretty much goes up to 11 in an attempt to take the belt from Mac. How do you explain body armor, the use of animals, a boxing glove on a rope, and winking?

Vodka Drunkeski changed his name for PR reasons

Think about it, he (or his manager) didn't like his image as a drunken maniac, so he switched from "Vodka" to "Soda" to become more kid friendly. Considering that's exactly what happens from a Doylist perspective, why not from a Watsonian one too?

Glass Joe's one win was against Little Mac in the Wii game's Exhibition mode

It's the only thing even close to resembling canon.

• Actually, Gabby Jay, the first boxer you fight in Super Punch Out, is Joe's trainer. It was Gabby who lost to Glass Joe, giving him his only win.
  • No, it was a freak accident against Nick Bruiser.
    • Except that Nick has zero losses on his record, so it couldn't be against him, Nintendo Power jokes aside. (And it's the other way around for Gabby - Joe is Gabby's trainer, and Gabby's one win is against Joe)
    • The youtuber Whang! has done some especulation about who Glass Joe actually beat from several context clues. His conclusion is: Glass Joe beat Nick Bruiser and ruined his career subsequently. The game in which we meet Nick Bruiser is a game in-universe (which is why "Glass Joe" is listed N.8 under times when you beat Nick Bruiser) and it is depicting Nick Bruiser before Glass Joe beat him.
  • Alternatively, it was against Mike Tyson in real life.

Doc Louis was a dog in a previous life

And now he can eat as much chocolate as he wants.

Aran Ryan is not really Irish

He uses the whole "Irish" thing to get away with his "antics" in the ring. He's either an Angry Scotsman, or an American who learned to do the accent.

Aran Ryan beat Don Flamenco with the infinite trick

He is just one place above Don Flamenco, Don can be stunlocked, and Aran has done much dirtier stuff than just a stunlock. So, why would he be above doing this one?

• Only flaw with the theory is that he doesn't really like jabs, so he must have found another way to stunlock Don.

King Hippo and a number of other fighters were once the World Champion

In Mr. Sandman's intro cutscene, we see him taking down all the other boxers in succession, just like Little Mac. This means that, in order to get a shot at the championship, every boxer must clear the lower rings first. Therefore, any boxer with at least enough skill to beat King Hippo might have once been the champ before being usurped. King Hippo still holds the Minor League Circuit belt (and he gets the nifty crown) as an honor for being the first champ.

• Couldn't that have been Mr. Sandman rising to the top?
  • He's saying that rising to the top gets one person harder each time there's a champ. Everyone climbed the ladder to where they are now, and everyone had to climb one step higher than the last.

Doc Louis and Mr. Sandman ran for the Title at the same time, and fought each other in the last match

Here's how it goes. Doc and Sandman were brothers who both had a dream to be the champ. Both trained hard to get as far as they could, and both made it through every boxer, but Mr. Sandman made it first. Doc Louis couldn't bring himself to beat his brother in the ring, and so he lost, losing hope for his boxing career and gorging himself on chocolate bars, until he met Little Mac, and placed all his hopes on that one kid.

Punch-Out!! takes place in New Reno.

New Reno's boxing circuit doesn't have any organised committee to investigate any charges of cheating. It's why Bear Hugger/Soda Popinski/Aran Ryan/King Hippo can get away with cheating. Plus, given the Crapsack World of Fallout and New Reno in particular, it's not surprising that the fans would enjoy it.

Glass Joe won when his opponent accidentally ate some bad Escargot and Joe punched the guy's badly cramping stomach

So the guy had to stay down lest the food poisoning make things worse. That does count as a "freak accident".

Aran Ryan is not a cheater.

In fact, none of the boxers are. What's the one thing that's common for all boxers? They wear boxing gloves! That's the only rule this championship demands its participants abide by. Even the weapon is a boxing glove itself.

Little Mac has cheeseburgers in his gloves.

How else is he going to hide them from Doc until after the match?

• ...Oh my dear god, this explains so much.

When they fought in Title Defense Mode, Mr. Sandman wanted Little Mac to win.

Sure, he puts on a big facade of hating Mac for taking his belt, but consider his only new attack, the Wink Punch. It's hella powerful, and is the only punch in the game that isn't telegraphed by the boxer blinking red just before. Normally it'd make him a shoe-in to regain his title, but because he's tired of all the hassles that come with being the champ, he winks in the direction the player should dodge to avoid it. It could just be an artifact of his "sleeping" gimmick, but it looks to me like he's saying "I'm about to attack here, so make sure to dodge," thus ensuring he looses the match while still putting on a good show.

Doc is an Eldritch Abomination.

His eyes...his eyeeeeessssssss... Also, he invented the Star Punch.

Kid Quick and Disco Kid are twin brothers

• Do I really need to say this? Kid Quick is Black. Disco Kid is, well, not exactly white, but not of any type of African descent that's for sure.
  • Disco Kid is certainly Black.

Heike Kagero is straight.

He just uses his charm to psych out the challenger... and the player.

• In his hometown of Osaka, he's so pretty that the ladies love him... and the guys, too. He knows and enjoys this.

The events of Punch-Out!! are actually a movie

During the post-Mac's Last Stand credits, it shows the names of the boxers, and the name of the Mii used for the profie as Little Mac at the end

Doc Louis wired Mac's bike with a bomb

Nothing pushes a guy harder than the fact that his prized possession AND his best friend will go up in flames if he doesn't catch up to him fast enough. If not this then...

Mac wired the bike with a confetti bomb

Its just to teach Doc a lesson about theft should he get too crafty for his own good.

Super Macho Man's infamous pecs are filled with BOGUS.

Meaning he is taking steroids and they aren't natural.

Almost all the boxers have some form of mental illness.

Narcis Prince is obvious.

• Von Kaiser and Aran Ryan attest to this theory (Wii version). Mad Clown from Super Punch-Out!! also. Super Macho Man probably qualifies (taking photos of himself), as does Bald Bull (both also Wii).

Narcis Prince took up boxing to dispel rumours that he's a wuss.

He's not paid to be beaten up, he took on the sport to stop the taunts and bad jokes. There's a reason why he bears his arms but not his chest.

Soda Popinski is going through Addiction Displacement

He's a recovering alcoholic, and switched to soda, only to discover that he liked it even more.

Doc retired after he lost his belt to a young Bald Bull

Why else would Bull taunt Doc in the NES version, and Doc to Bull in the Wii version?

Doc is Obfuscating Stupidity

The reason he sometimes gives goofy "hints" to Mac ("Join the Nintendo Fun/Club Nintendo today! Mac.") is to help Mac learn how to defeat the opponent on his own. Of course, this may or may not help the player...

In the Wii version, there is more than one referee

Not only is there one for every ring (Minor, Major, World), there are also substitutes to come in if one dies/becomes critically injured. How else do they survive Super Macho Man, Aran Ryan, and Bald Bull?

Mac's heart is located in his hands

This is why his heart meter goes down if he hits an opponent's gloves. Aran Ryan was right-the cholesterol from eating cheeseburgers is located in Mac's gloves.

Aran Ryan is a conspiracy theorist.

He knows about the cheeseburgers Little Mac keeps in his gloves.

The boxing matches are all staged.

Much like in Professional Wrestling, none of the fights are actually fights. This explains pretty much all the Fridge Logic: The blatant cheating, the abuse of the referee, the various gimmicks, it's all simply part of the show. Great Tiger's "teleportation" is really just smokescreens and/or lasers. Little Mac was set up as a rising star, complete with a Face–Heel Turn for Super Macho Man a little while before his debut. The reason boxers with less wins can reach higher circuits is simply that the fans like their persona more.

• Case in point: the animation of Glass Joe getting TKO'd has at least four frames of honest-to-god anticipation after Mac's punch connects. Instead of getting sent flying by the punch, he seems to be squatting down just a bit before jumping upward — in other words, selling a blow. Glass Joe himself probably throws many of his fights.

Doc Louis is an empath.

The endorphin rush he receives when eating a chocolate bar transfers to Mac to give him more fighting spirit, thus effectively increasing his health.

Gaston (Beauty and the Beast) and Super Macho Man are related.

Do I really need to explain?

Glass Joe almost beat Nick Bruiser.

They had both just kicked off their professional boxing careers. It was Joe's second match (He won his first one, obviously), and he was doing fairly well. He was ready to TKO Nick with less than half a minute remaining on the clock. But Nick made a comeback near the end of their match, beating Joe hard enough to traumatize him for the rest of his career. Years after the fact, when Nick went on to become an undefeated champion, the WVBA awarded Joe an honorary win on his record for coming closer than anyone by far.

The other fighters aren't actually showing how they're going to attack.

Mac has trained to the point that he can see minimal movements as blatant, slow-motion hints.

Mac's Last Stand was a way for Mac to quickly retire so he could get back to his personal life

After winning the Champion belt and successfully defending it from his old opponents, suddenly, Mac was faced with large amounts of pressure from his personal life. Maybe it was high school, one of his parents died, or applying for college. With all of the media exposure and all of the WVBA challenging him continuously, he could not deal with his personal issues. The WVBA regulations probably state that you can only retire after three consecutive losses, so he decided to host a "Last Stand" to live one last moment of glory before returning to his personal life.

The "power juice" in two-player mode is actually steroids.

It makes Little Mac grow really big, strong and muscular. After a while, he goes back to the way he was before.

Soda/vodka is Soda Popinski's literal fuel.

He needs it to live, or maybe he's some kind of machine that uses the soda as fuel. (Alternatively, he has soda in his veins instead of blood.) He drinks it all the time, to the point of oozing fizzy bubbles, with sounds to match when being hit. He has to drink it regularly, and when knocked down, he has to drink more of it to get up. He loses when he realizes he's run out of it. His Title Defense intro starts with scientists attaching a bunch of things to him, and he's not ready to fight again until they're finished and he gets more soda.

Not only Soda Popinski, but half of your opponents are robots

• Just look at it this way: Glass Joe's a weakling, and he apparently has been taking beatings for a LONG time, yet he's still fighting as if nothing happened. Why is this? Because he's literally Made of Iron! Von Kaiser is the oldest robot in the competiton, thus he has some glitches such as his face tic, his shaking, and his overall mannerisms. Also, he's not a Shell-Shocked Veteran, he just acts like that because his brain circuits are damaged. Aran Ryan's incarnation in Punch-Out Wii acts so different from his Super-Punch Out one because his personality chip has been reprogrammed, etc... Doc Louis is aso an old boxing robot reprogrammed to be a trainer, and, much like Soda Popinski, he needs a special kind of fuel, this being chocolate. It also explains the eyes...

Glass Joe will be the protagonist in the next Punch Out!!

• Picture it: Little Mac has retired. Doc Louis will look for a new apprentice. Glass Joe will decide that he's sick of being the Butt-Monkey of the WVBA, and will turn to the man who trained one of the greatest boxers of all time. It could happen!

Doc's full name is "Iron" Griffith Louis

• The Memetic Mutation for his Star Punch is more accurate than we thought.
• According to the Punch-Out wiki, Doc's full name is actually Jerome "Doc" Louis.
• Perhaps "Iron Griffith" was his stage name during his old boxer days?

The original Aran Ryan was murdered by an impersonator.

• This is the only possible way to explain in-universe why the Wii Aran Ryan is drastically different from the SNES one. Because the Wii Aran Ryan has been bold enough to resort to numerous illegal actions in order to defeat Little Mac, he must then have been able to do something against the relatively more sane Aran Ryan we knew from Super Punch Out!!; either he killed him, or at least abducted him and left him trapped inside a closet or something.
  • Alternatively they are the same guy. Think about it. In between Punch Out and Super Punch Out, Aran has a wakeup call when his cheating tactics don't work the first time around, (considering he tried it twice and failed to beat Mac), so he cleans up his act and starts training seriously and bulks up, improving his endurance and resilence, develops his Stamina draining clinch technique, and becomes much much tougher to take down with anything short of a super punch. (He is rather easy to knock down if you know how to do it). That he's able to regain his spot in the world circuit without his blatant cheating from before convinces him to stay a face.

Aran Ryan has Medium Awareness

• He knows that girls play the Wii game as much as boys, and he takes advantage of it in some ways. For example, his comment "You're pretty like my sister" isn't directed at Little Mac; it's directed at any female players he would've found pretty had he met them in reality.

Von Kaiser comes from a proud family line and is trying to keep up with his ancestors

• To quote Youtube user Baron Grackle: "Von Kaiser comes from a proud line. His father punched down the Berlin Wall with his bare fists. His grandfather secretly resisted Nazism by punching trains off railroad tracks, behind German lines. In World War I, his great grandfather forced Tsarist Russia into retirement with a well-placed uppercut. His great great grandfather KOed Emperor Napoleon III in two rounds."

The reason why Donkey Kong

fights Mac...is that DK wants revenge against Mac for making him lose so many fights in Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Soda Popinski is a coward when sober.

Soda, when sober, utterly lacks confidence. He got into boxing very reluctantly, and ended up hitting the bottle just to work up the courage to get into the match. It worked amazingly well, and he becomes a skilled, confident boxer when drunk. The specialized drink the scientists work on in Title Defense is a mild hallucinogenic that replicates the confidence boost and painkilling properties of vodka while sharply reducing the negative effects.

Little Mac is related to Apollo Justice.

When his opponents turn red before they attack, that's just Little Mac using his Perceive power to anticipate their next move.

• I always thought they looked similar.

Donkey Kong

kidnaps Mac because... He needed Mac to take down King KRUSHA K. Rool.

Soda Popinski's bottles do indeed contain "coke"

The Russians found a method of effectively liquifying cocaine and bottle it in order to give their national champion Popinski a little "boost" as it were, hence his near-abnormal performance and reaction to just the tiniest drop.

Mac retired from the WVBA because...

When he first started out (Minor Circuit), he was single, and was doing the whole boxing thing partially as a way to get the ladies. Around the Major or World Circuit, he meets an ill female intern reporter who goes to his school/college, and it's Love at First Sight. She starts coming to all his matches, cheers him on... then, the day he's defended his title against Mr. Sandman, they learn she's had major cancer for most of her life, and she only has a few weeks to live. Mac decides he wants to stay by her side for her final days, but the WVBA informs him of all the challenges he's had to take, and that's when Mac decides to perform his Last Stand. Out of respect for his opponents, he doesn't half-ass the fights, and they genuinely win against him all 3 times. The night he loses for the 3rd time, Mac rushes to his girlfriend's room in the hospital she's staying at... only to find that it's too late. She's already dead. Mac is so heartbroken that he's Driven to Suicide, and the WVBA decides to honor him with a memorial in their Hall of Fame. Hence the sad music in the ending cutscene.

The next game will include the women's division of the WVBA.

It's been noted that the creators considered making Princess Peach a secret fighter in the Wii game, but decided that it wouldn't be a good idea for Mac to be fighting women. The logical solution? Include a female player character in the next game, along with a group of female opponents.

• An even better idea is that the next Punch Out!! sequel has a woman be the main character, with Little Mac as her trainer. After Mac's retirement, a few decades have passed and he wanted to honor the recently deceased Doc Louis by training an obscure underdog into getting the World Championship title. After coming across a young, strong-spirited amateur female boxer who wanted to join in something more than a women's only tournament, Mac decided to train her and have her join the WVBA instead. However, extreme sexism was involved with the WVBA management, and they didn't want her to join in such a brutal and manly tournament. Little Mac wants to prove them wrong, and made a bet with them that if she wins the World Championship title, the WVBA will have to accept all woman who are willing to join the WVBA. But if she loses only three times in her entire career, she is forced to retire (Similar to the NES game and Mac's Last Stand). As she and Mac fight through the tournament, the opponents would always mock her of her sex and underestimate her. Mac has experienced this kind of prejudice before, as he was very small and weak looking to all the other boxers back when he was in the WVBA, but proved them wrong when he received the World Championship title. Knowing this, Mac will never give up on her winning the title. Thus, the next Punch Out!! installment is here to be challenged by the player.
  • And while we're going with this idea, this might finally give Peach a chance to be the secret challenger as originally planned in the Wii version. It won't be offensive if it's woman against woman as said before, and it would make sense with the story because of Mac's bet with the WVBA.
  • Additionally, instead of a woman battling men, the next game is all women, and various bad stereotypes thereof. There will be a Texan cowgirl boxer, a huge, burly Russian matron, Aran Ryan's sister, and a female opera singer. The world champion? The Marchioness of Queensbury.
  • And let's also have a stubborn Scottish lassie who can only be knocked down with very specific counters or Star Punches, and maybe a hot-headed Italian who's 5' 2" and fires off fisticuffs galore till you hit the mat instead of knocking you down in a few powerful punches (I mean, we gotta give the Italians a better representation than Pizza Pasta, right?).
  • The above idea could literally just be the Womens' division in the OP. But anyway, other ideas for this could include a South American woman and thus a literal Amazonian Beauty who would do much grappling and trapping.
  • A Filipina girl who's the consummate gadfly (or even troll), borrowing heavily from Prince Naseem in terms of Confusion Fu (the main feature being the guardless stance which allows for nonchalant dodging), who'd be the absolute arch-nemesis of anyone who has a Hair-Trigger Temper.

Relating the NES and Wii versions

In the NES game, Mike Tyson was retconned into Mr. Dream, originating from Dreamland. Mr. Sandman's signature move is the Dreamland Express. Little Mac lost to Mr. Sandman and dreamed that he won, and moved on to take on a legendary contender that represents who he strived to be. After realizing he lost the bout with Mr. Sandman, he decided to try again, this time with more spectacular results.

Aran Ryan's sister is also a boxer, and a very good one.

"Me sister hits harder than you" is not an exaggeration. Aran's sister is legitimately tougher than he is.

It's all staged entertainment, in the style of WWE.

I mean, look at the names of some of these boxers. Disco Kid? King Hippo? No, this is just fake entertainment. Mike Tyson is a guest boxer, just like in the 90s with the WWF.

Round 3 is actually Round 15.

There's an unseen time skip after Round 2, like in most Rocky movies.

Mr. Dream is the Challenger from the arcade Punch-Out and Super Punch-Out.

He won two circuit belts and scored 99 KOs before retiring undefeated. When Little Mac wins three circuit belts, fans speculate about which of them would win in a bout. Mr. Dream comes out of retirement (his hair no longer dyed green) to give fans the "Dream Fight" they demand.

Mr. Dream is Kirby after eating Mike Tyson and absorbing his powers.

Mr. Dream is from Dreamland, where it's most famous hero is a pink marshmallow that eats people and absorbs powers form those eaten. Perhaps after losing to Little Mac, Mike Tyson vacationed, somehow ended up in Dreamland only for his powers to be eaten by Kirby.

The Challenger from the arcade games is Mac Lee Green, referenced in Rocky.

He has green hair. He was the inspiration for Little Mac. And he was going to fight Apollo Creed for the world heavyweight championship, before he injured his hand.

Glass Joe got to fight Little Mac in the title defense thanks to the internet

Glass Joe is legendary for being walking punching bag, so legendary in fact that he is essentially a walking meme as a walking punching bag. When Little Mac started his challenge of defending the title, the first match was decided by internet voting, which would explain why a boxer with a 1-99 (well, 1-100 record after the fight with Little Mac) would get the first title defense match.

Ryan and his sister have a rocky relationship

Him saying Mac is pretty like her is a chide remark against her. He and his sister often get into fights.

The fight against DK was meant as an audition fight for Little Mac to join Super Smash Bros..

Mac fully intended to retire after Last Stand, but then Master Hand sent DK over to Mac's world to invite him as a fighter. DK decided to test him out in the form of a boxing match, one Mac just BARELY won. Finding out about the Super Smash Bros. tournaments, Little Mac still retired from boxing, but only so that he can join the Smash Bros. fights!

The entire franchise is actually a Professional Gaming tournament.

As has been noted multiple times, the tournament's acronym is WVBA, short for the World Video Boxing Association. This could be referring to the fact that Punch-Out!! is a video game, but it could also be referring to the fact that the characters are playing a video game in-universe, said game being Punch-Out!!. Little Mac and Doc Louis warm up by doing real training and finding the best strategies for fighting, which is followed by them taking off their boxing gloves, going to their comfy chairs, grabbing their controllers and a bowl of chocolate, and playing Punch-Out!! until bedtime. On the days of the battles, Doc Louis rides a bike to the expo center, and Mac jogs behind him. They enter the central area where the competition is held, and Mac plays a game of Punch-Out!! against his opponent. Yep, Mac is actually a pro gamer.

King Hippo looks like that because he was born with a birth defect.

Aaaaand your childhood is ruined.^note Then again, despite his morbid appearance, King Hippo strived to overcome it by becoming a fearsome, strong boxer. Sure, he's only the champion of the Minor Circuit, but he tried, and he is a fearsome and strong boxer we know and love.

Glass Joe's real name is...

"Joseph du Verre". Don't get it? Look up the French word "verre"...

Mr. Sandman has a Superpowered Evil Side that comes out after Little Mac defeats him.

During the Contender match, Mr. Sandman is a generic heavyweight champion that may be tough and somewhat scary, but he doesn't really stress putting Little Mac to sleep outside of taunting him when he's knocked down. Before the rematch even starts, you can see that something went very wrong between his fights with Little Mac. As early as in Contender mode, when you KO Mr. Sandman, he falls to the floor with a very slow, monotone cry of "Dreamlaaand..." That one loss was enough to break him and cause his inner Sandman to emerge without restraint.

His black color scheme isn't just a reference to Mike Tyson; it is also a motif for the night sky or a darkened bedroom. His Dreamland Express is announced with "Dreeeeamlaaaand!" in a Creepy Monotone instead of the more generic "Afraid?". His attacks are much faster (especially the Dreamland Express), and his new winking uppercut is impossibly fast - without some... assistance, anyway. He punched an entire building (and possibly a few next to it) to rubble just because he saw a Little Mac poster, showing little concern or care for those around him. He also likes to talk a lot more about bedtime during intermissions, and is more than eager to tuck you in for the night.

The only way for The Sandman to back off and return to normal is for him to defeat you. When he does, the sincere, if somewhat cheesy and childish, grin on his face when he lifts up the ref shows that he's human after all... for now, anyway.

Little Mac is brainwashed

Doc kidnapped a kid from the street and brainwashed him. Mac rarely speaks, is always staring at nothing and is ready for an another beatdown immediately after getting his face punched in.

The boxers aren't actually stereotypes.

They are all normal boxers from other countries with realistic personalities, and they are just acting stereotypical to entertain the audience.

There will be a direct sequel to the Wii game, on the Switch.

And to start a trend that started with Donkey Kong, the Superboss will be Bowser.

• Bonus points if they do either of the following: Make the blonde protagonist of Super Punch-Out a brand-new character distinct from Little Mac instead of a bad redesign (if Mac doesn't return—he did retire in the last game), or bring back Mr. Dream as the champion and turn him into a Captain Ersatz of Rocky Balboa to make him cooler (similar to how Sandman was made a caricature of Mike Tyson).
• Alternatively, the Superboss is Captain Falcon. Complete with his Falcon Punch being a hard-to-avoid One-Hit Kill that immediately ends the fight if it hits.
• Or, the Superboss will actually be Princess Peach this time, with her elegant style being really deadly.
• Or it can be Ganondorf. You will no longer face just boxers, you will throw hands with a true evil that can throw very hard punches. And he will have the Warlock Punch to beat you instantly.

Piston Hondo is a Moonie

In an episode of Boundary Break, it is revealed that the book that Piston Hondo is reading between matches during Title Defense is a Sailor Moon manga, though the panels are out of order and he is holding it upside-down.

Punch-Out takes place in the same world as Team Fortress 2.

The flagrant national stereotypes and ridiculous cartoon violence in what are supposed to be legal boxing matches make this plausible. Point against this theory: the ridiculous cartoon violence only happens sometimes instead of all the time.

Punch-Out is a video game adaptation of Tomorrow's Joe with the Serial Numbers Filed Off the same way Mega Man "adapted" Astro Boy

Just a feeling I get from the way Lil' Mac resembles Joe visually and his climb through the ranks (and the way his story ends should the player decide to quit) also echoes Joe's character development.

The Bruiser Brothers are from Thailand and transitioned to boxing from Muay Thai.

Given that the brothers are both large, dark skinned fighters with designs based on Sagat it wouldn't be too out of left field for them to be from the same country. They also wouldn't be the first Thai kickboxers to transition to boxing for some extra folding money. Their shared strategy of disabling an opponents arms to go to town on them is also a common one in Muay Thai though Nak Muay usually "break the shell" with kicks rather than punches. The reason they throw elbows but not kicks is because unlike Hoy Qarlow and Dragon Chan they're actually trying to follow boxing rules and only lapse into elbow strikes out of instinct when particularly desperate.

The Bruisers likely joined the WVBA because at their weight it's nearly impossible to get proper fights in Thailand. International Kickboxing also isn't very well developed during this decade so the only option to make bank was Boxing. The name "Bruiser" is a stage name to make it easier for foreign audiences and sponsors to support them and they keep their home country a secret as both a marketing gimmick and a way to keep opponents from studying their fighting styles too closely.

• On this topic, the Bruiser Brothers might return in a Punch-Out!! sequel with a friendly rivalry against Mr. Sandman after the duo took the lead in the World Circuit (unless the Special Circuit makes a return too). Also, we'd finally be able to hear the duo finally get to throw verbal jabs at Little Mac, and we'd get some tidbits about their mysterious origins.

Super Macho Man has been consistently lying about his real age since he was 27.

The public and the media either don't pick up on it ("The famous boxer Super Macho Man, who has miraculously stayed at the age of 27 for decades..."), or look at his biceps and decide that pretending to not notice would be less painful.

• It's worth noting that in Super Punch-Out!! SMM was listed as 28 years old. If that game is earlier in the timeline than the Wii one, he may have even lowered his "public" age since then.

Glass Joe isn't in the joke of his stage name.

In the Wii version, he proudly proclaims "Je suis Glass Joe!" ("I am Glass Joe!") He doesn't speak enough English to recognize the name is a pun on "glass jaw" (or he possibly just doesn't understand what the idiom "glass jaw" signifies). Not recognizing it as an insult, he wears the name with pride.

Super Macho Man in the Wii version is the boxing equivalent of a Heel.

Let's look at it this way- he's got a high standing, is flagrantly a douche, and is widely hated by the audience, yet they will still cheer for him if he pulls a win against Little Mac in Title Defense. All of the stuff he does outside the ring could be him staying in-character.

Future stereotypical boxers future games could do

• An Australian fighter who takes after marsupials. To shake things up they could be Australian aboriginal instead of the usual "Crocodile" Dundee white.
• A tough as nails texan a la Texas Mac.
• A muscular Brazillian woman that's quite the shapely Ms. Fanservice.^note She'd be an Amazon
• An Italian who may have connections to a certain group. He also accuses Mac (who may be Italian American a la Rocky) of not being a real Italian.
  • As a nod to Pizza Pasta, he jokes about how Aran Ryan kicked his butt and replaced him and turned out to be a superior successor.
• A social media influencer who went into boxing, and yes they'd be a pastiche of a certain someone
• A Filipino / Filipina who takes heavy riffs off Manny Pacquiao, relying on the Southpaw Advantage, incredible swiftness, and Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs to get the job done.
• Another Japanese boxer, though unlike Piston Hondo's Samurai honor, they've got a meek and shy personality outside the ring, but an absolutely brutal and violent fighting style whenever they're in it, basically being a riff off of Ippo Makunouchi.
  • On a similar note, another boxer from Osaka. Except unlike Heike Kagero, this boxer will be less of a charmer and more of an idiot. That's not to say you shouldn't Beware the Silly Ones; This boxer is also a southpaw, and possesses the most freakish power in the game, even more powerful than the likes of Mr. Sandman himself (one of the most notable punches the boxer possesses being Takeshi Sendo's Smash).
• Another French boxer, who is a Contrasting Sequel Antagonist to Glass Joe and who made it to the World Circuit or higher. They're actually very polite, have a taste for fine things in life, and present quite a challenge.

Mr Sandman used to be like Little Mac

He used to be an underdog that joined the WVBA as a straightforward boxer with no gimmicks compared to its bevy of ridculous stereotypes, and won just by being a good puncher. However, unlike Mac, his constant winnings made him grow increasingly arrogant and self-sure.

Piston Hondo is actually testing Little Mac.

Hondo has only ONE loss on his record before fighting Mac, which was obviously against Mr. Sandman. So how come he isn't higher ranked on the Major Circuit, or even part of the World Circuit? Perhaps he saw the loss as a stain on his honor, and refused to accept any matches since then. But when Hondo hears about a young prodigy who conquered the Minor Circuit, he decides to step back into the ring to see if Little Mac has what it takes to succeed where he failed.

• Also, his Title Defense match could be Hondo making sure that Mac's victories weren't a fluke. Or it could be that hearing about Little Mac's victory over Sandman inspired him to re-train and step back into the ring for real.

The WVBA is more akin to Professional Wrestling than a realistic portrayal of boxing.

This would be the best possible Hand Wave for all the cheating and Artistic License – Sports going on. The fighters act the way they do because while they all might possess varying levels of actual boxing skill, they're still actors playing characters who are different personalities from the people portraying them. The games even offers some evidence for this, such as Bald Bull only acting like a madman while there's a match going on, or King Hippo being a bellowing, belligerent Gonk in the ring but amicable and offering to take Mac out to lunch afterwards, not to mention coming from "Hippo Island." The league mixes in some actual boxers, such as Little Mac himself, Mr. Sandman and Piston Hondo, partly to show how "ordinary" people can overcome these over-the-top caricatures with enough skill and practice. Hell, the entirety of Career Mode in the Wii game can be seen as a pre-planned story arc about a kid from the Bronx making it to the top, defending his title, then retiring at the peak of his career in order to leave a lasting legacy.

Doc Louis and Kid Quick are the same person.

Both are heavyweights (from the NES manual and Kid Quick's weight of 210 lbs) and African-American, so it could be safe to assume Punch-Out!! for the arcade is a prequel to both Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! and Punch-Out!! for the Wii, along with Doc and Quick being the same person.

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